China’s top social networking sites launch ‘blackout’ effect to promote Earth Hour

To mark Earth Hour this coming Saturday, March 23rd from 8:30pm to 9:30pm, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) China and creative agency BBH China have collaborated to launch an Earth Hour awareness digital campaign “Light only what you need”.

Some of China’s top social networking sites – Renren, Youku, QQ, Ushi, 139 and Kaixin, are collaborating to blackout their websites for one hour to drive awareness around the global movement, Earth Hour. The combined websites have a daily reach of over 200 million per day.

Visit here for a preview of the social network sites ‘blackout’ that will happen during Earth Hour, March 23rd

During Earth Hour, these website users will experience a blackout on their web browser with the message “Light only what you need”. Only a spotlight will appear during a search, guiding users across a page to allow users to experience what it means to be part of the Earth Hour movement digitally.

Johnny Tan, Executive Creative Director of BBH China said, “Traditionally Earth Hour has been about encouraging people to turn their lights off in the real world. We wanted to take that behavior online and harness the power of the digital space to connect more deeply with consumers.”

Allen Chai, Manager of WWF China Earth Hour added, “We hope BBH’s creative helps the users to better understand the cause, to use only what we need and to take the movement “beyond the hour” to make a real difference.”

Jing Huang, VP of Renren.com commented, “Energy saving is still not in most Chinese daily life. By joining this great initiative, we hope to raise not only the awareness, but more importantly, to turn that awareness into real actions. Big or small, just do it!”

Ma Xiao Bo, representative, Youku Director of consumption content centre said, “We’ve partnered with WWF in Earth Hour for the past 3 years. Fully utilizing digital video  as a way to bring across an environmental message to people in a vivid and engaging manner, and hopefully contributing towards a bigger cause.”

Credits – Executive Creative Director: Johnny Tan. Creative Team: Ma Yinbo, Zizi Shi, Michelle Wu, Aaron Koh, Carol Ong. Engagement Planning: Darius Karbassioun, Jonathan Koh. Digital Producer: Lin Yilin. Account Management: Finnian O’Neill, Jane Chen. Digital Company: C3 Interactive.